by Susan Herzog, Information Literacy Librarian @ Eastern Connecticut State University

Part 1: Definitions & History

Definitions

Paquet, Sébastien. “Personal Knowledge Publishing and Its Uses in Research (1/2).” National Research Council of Canada. http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/253/2010/5/2008.

1. Defining the term

Weblogs may be viewed as an evolved form of personal Web pages, or 'home pages'. The term, coined by Jorn Barger in 1997, refers to a web site that is a 'log of the Web', indicating a record that points to material available on the World Wide Web. A weblog editor is often called a weblogger. The shorthand terms blog and blogger are also commonly used; usage of the word 'blog' has become so common that it has recently been drafted for inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Definitions from Peter Scott's Weblogs Compendium
http://www.feedbus.com/weblogs/definitions.html.

“This is a list of articles which attempt to explain what weblogs are:

Anatomy of a Weblog - Cameron Barrett
http://www.camworld.com/journal/rants/99/01/26.html.

Fear of Links - Scott Rosenberg
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/rose/1999/05/28/weblogs/.

Here Come the Weblogs - Jon Katz
http://slashdot.org/features/99/05/13/1832251.shtml.

Unofficial Glossary of Weblog Terms - an unofficial glossary of terms related to Weblogs, Webzines, and Personal Publishing by John Hiler
http://www.microcontentnews.com/resources/weblogglossary.htm.

Weblog resources FAQ - Jorn Barger
http://www.robotwisdom.com/weblogs/.

Weblogs: A History and Perspective - Rebecca Blood
http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html.

What are weblogs? - Dave Winer
http://bgbg.blogspot.com/2003_06_08_bgbg_archive.html#200402733.

What are weblogs? - the November 16/2001 definition - Dave Winer
http://www.scripting.com/2001/11.html#When:6:43:22PM.

What is a weblog? - Guardian Unlimited
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weblog/special/0,10627,744914,00.html.

What the hell is a weblog? - Derek Powazek
http://www.powazek.com/wtf/.”

Walker, Jill. Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (2005). http://huminf.uib.no/~jill/archives/blog_theorising/final_version_of_
weblog_definition.html.

final version of weblog definition
An excerpt from a definitive definition, written for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (2005), by Dr. Jill Walker, Department of Humanistic Informatics, University of Bergen, Norway:

“A weblog, or blog, is a frequently updated website consisting of dated entries arranged in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first (see temporal ordering). Typically, weblogs are published by individuals and their style is personal and informal. Weblogs first appeared in the mid-1990s, becoming popular as simple and free publishing tools became available towards the turn of the century. Since anybody with a net connection can publish their own weblog, there is great variety in the quality, content, and ambition of weblogs, and a weblog may have anywhere from a handful to tens of thousands of daily readers.”

glossary from Samizdata
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/glossary.html.

“Like all internet formats, weblogs, also known as ‘blogs’, have developed many terms which may baffle newcomers. The Blogging glossary is a resource for people who want to decode and demystify the jargon they may encounter whilst cruising through the blogosphere. Although this glossary does not purport to be exhaustive by any means, it is one of the most complete of its kind regarding blog terminology and it is periodically updated. Most of the terms herein really are in use but we must confess that a few are, shall we say, rather whimsical.”

Oxford English Dictionary Online (subscription). NEW EDITION: draft entry, March 2003.

blog, n. [Shortened WEBLOG.]
weblog, n.
1. A file storing a detailed record of requests handled (and sometimes also errors generated) by a web server.

2. A frequently updated web site consisting of personal observations, excerpts from other sources, etc., typically run by a single person, and usually with hyperlinks to other sites; an online journal or diary.

“blog, v.
To write or maintain a weblog. Also: to read or browse through weblogs, esp. habitually.

History

Blood, Rebecca. “weblogs: a history and perspective.” Rebecca's Pocket. 7/9/2000. http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html.

Prolific writer Blood's comprehensive essay on the history and development of weblogs.

Chymes, M. “An Incomplete Annotated History of Weblogs.” http://web.archive.org/web/20031119025356/
http://www.chymes.org/hyper/weblogs.html.

An abandoned web site, archived in the Internet Archive, still provides a useful timeline, including links, to the earliest blogs.

Paquet, Sébastien. “Personal Knowledge Publishing and Its Uses in Research (1/2).” National Research Council of Canada. http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/253/2010/5/2008.

“Early years
The first weblog was Tim Berners-Lee's ‘What's New?’ page at, http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/News/
9201.html, which pointed to new Web sites as they came online. The second weblog was Marc Andreessen's ‘What's New?’ page at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (archived http://web.archive.org/web/20050322091307/http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.
edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/whats-new.html), which performed a similar function until mid-1996.

Several new weblogs appeared with the explosion of the web in 1996-1997. Early weblogs include Dave Winer's Scripting News http://www.scripting.com/ , John Barger's Robot Wisdom http://www.robotwisdom.com/ , and Cameron Barrett's CamWorld http://www.camworld.com/ . Although it is now collectively edited, Rob Malda's Slashdot http://slashdot.org/ , deserves mention, as it became (and to this day remains) phenomenally popular.”

Timeline of Early Blogs. BLOCKSTAR.
http://www.blockstar.com/blog/blog_timeline.html.

A timeline of blogging's early history with links to some of the first blogs.

Winer, Dave. “The History of Weblogs,” Weblogs.com News, May 17, 2002.
http://www.userland.com/theHistoryOfWeblogs.

Blogging pioneer Winer, a Harvard Law School Berkman Center fellow, is author of the Scripting News weblog, “which was one of the earliest and is currently the longest-running weblog on the Internet.” He provides pithy commentary and links on the evolution of weblogs.

BlogBib
Copyright © 2004
Susan Herzog

Interviews and Articles
Bauer, Elise. “What is Blogging?” elise.com: On the Job, October 17, 2003. http://www.elise.com/web/a/what_is_blogging.php.

Bauer, who advises technology companies on their business and marketing strategies, provides one of the best descriptions of the motivation for and act of blogging: “…I discovered blogging in the spring of 2003, and have since become hooked. My goal is to blog everything I know that I think others might find useful, and everything I learn that I might want to reference later. Instead of filing away a clipping into the dungeon of my file cabinet, I just blog it, so not only can I find it but others can as well. As I have a lot of interests, I now have a lot of weblogs. They have become a sort of public extension of my brain, except with a much more reliable data retrieval mechanism.”

Blood, Rebecca. "Ten Tips for a Better Weblog." Rebecca's Pocket. March 22, 2003. http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/ten_tips.html.

Prolific writer Blood's expert advice.

Conhaim, Wallys W. “Blogging – What is it?” Link-up 19, Issue 3 (May-June 2002).

Conhaim, who writes about the Internet and online environment, provides a comprehensive overview of blogging as both a communication tool and new online culture. She asserts that “…by leading people to important information, bloggers are exercising a new and perhaps very effective form of non- hierarchical, 21st century leadership.”

Fiedler, Sebastian. “Personal webpublishing as a refective conversational tool for self-organized learning.” BlogTalk 2003. May 12, 2003.

Fiedler, Doctoral Student of Media Pedagogy, Universität Augsburg, Germany, suggests that “…personal Webpublishing technologies and practices can be conceptualized as a reflective conversational learning tool for self-organized learning. Beyond the examination of the theoretical basis for such a claim, initial ideas for specific learning environment designs on the basis of a ‘conversational framework’ are presented.”

Gahran, Amy. “Blogging Style: The Basic Posting Formats (Series Index).” 9/22/2004. http://blog.contentious.com/archives/2004/09/22/blogging-style-the-
basic-posting-formats-series-index.

Gahran, writer, editor, trainer, and publisher of the blog, CONTENTIOUS, deconstructs blog postings from a writer’s perspective.

Gillmor, Steve. “Google's Blogger Boss Focuses on the User.” eWeek, May 20, 2004. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1595760,00.asp.

Gilmor interviews Blogger co-founder and Google Program Manager Evan Williams about the revamped Blogger, which focuses on the user, with “an ease-of-use factor”, by “building out some of the community aspects”, and “improving the experience and esthetics of the blogs themselves and the flexibility with what you can do with them.”

Good, Robin. “The Death Of The Webmaster: Why Weblogs Bring A True Revolution To Internet Publishing”. MasterMind Explorer, July 28, 2003. http://www.masternewmedia.org/2003/07/28/the_death_of_the_
webmaster_why_weblogs_bring_a_true_revolution_to_internet_
publishing.htm.

Robin Good, aka Luigi Canali De Rossi, is a communication skills expert and apioneer in exploring and adopting new ways of integrating new media technologies into communication and learning activities. A prolific writer, his articles may be found in a weekly newsletter called MasterMind Explorer and his blog, Sharewood Tidings . Here find Robin’s eloquent take on the blogging revolution.

___. “What Is The Difference Between A Normal Web Site And One Powered By A Simple CMS Or Weblog?”. MasterMind Explorer, June 11, 2003. http://www.masternewmedia.org/2003/06/11/what_is_the_difference
_between_a_normal_web_site_and_one_powered_by_a_simple_cms
_or_weblog.htm.

Good provides one of the best differentiations available.

Grohol, John M. “Psychology of Weblogs: 2002.” May 23, 2002. http://www.psychcentral.com/blogs/blog2002.htm.

Grohol, an online psychologist, who focuses on the study of online human behavior and the interface between psychology and computers, updates his 1998 essay, exploring the growth and impact of blogging from a psychological perspective.

Grumet, Andrew. “Deep Thinking about Weblogs.” http://www.grumet.net/writing/web/deep-thinking-about-weblogs.html.

Grumet questions the meaning and relevance of blogs and compares them with home pages, stressing that “a weblog can thereby provide:

• a way to feel closer to friends and family members who may be geographically distant
• a way to locate and to stay current on the activities of professional peers or people who share a common interest
• a range of firsthand accounts and armchair perspectives on current events, as they happen
• a voyeuristic glimpse into the life of someone that interests you.”

Gurak, Laura and Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie A. Johnson, Clancy Ratliff and Jessica Reyman, eds. Into the Blogosphere. University of Minnesota. http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/.

A peer-reviewed, interactive journal on blogging; you are encouraged to post responses to the articles: “This online, edited collection explores discursive, visual, social, and other communicative features of weblogs. Essays analyze and critique situated cases and examples drawn from weblogs and weblog communities. Such a project requires a multidisciplinary approach, and contributions represent perspectives from Rhetoric, Communication, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Linguistics, and Education, among others.”

Hourihan, Meg. “What We're Doing When We Blog.” O'Reilly Network. June 13, 2002. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/2002/06/13/megnut.html.

A classic from Hourihan, one of the founders of Pyra, the company that created Blogger, and a co-author of the book, We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs. Hourihan deconstructs the anatomy of a blog post and explores blogging as “a communication evolution.”

Krause, Steven D. “When Blogging Goes Bad.” Kairos 9, no. 1 (Fall 2004). http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/9.1/binder.html?praxis/krause/index.html.

Krause, Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Eastern Michigan University, reflects on his experiences using blogs in the writing classroom and his preference for using e-mail discussion lists.

LeFever, Lee. “What are the Differences Between Message Boards and Weblogs?” http://www.commoncraft.com/archives/000768.html.

A thoughtful exploration from LeFever, who created Common Craft, where he works with businesses to realize business value from online communities and weblogs. The table is especially helpful.

Long, Phillip D. “Blogs: A Disruptive Technology Coming of Age?” Syllabus Magazine, October 1, 2002. http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=6774.

Long, senior strategist for the Academic Computing Enterprise at MIT, examines the question: “To blog or not to blog, that is increasingly the question for those of us supporting our academic communities.”

McGann, Rob. “The Blogosphere By the Numbers.” ClickZ Stats, November 22, 2004. http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/traffic_patterns/article.php/
3438891.

McGann provides a collection of recent metrics on blogging, accompanied by some excellent visuals, a chart and a graph.

Mortensen, Torill and Jill Walker. “Blogging Thoughts: Personal Publication as an Online Research Tool.” http://www.intermedia.uio.no/konferanser/skikt-02/docs/Researching_
ICTs_in_context-Ch11-Mortensen-Walker.pdf.

An academic paper exploring the use of blogs in research on online communication and games by Torill Mortensen, Volda College, Norway, and Jill Walker, University of Bergen, Norway. They claim that “writing and the way we express thoughts change when you use different tools.”

NetGuide Magazine. “47 Key Tips From The World's Best Bloggers.” NetGuide Magazine 79, October 2003. http://web.archive.org/web/20060427193441/
http://www.netguide.co.nz/magazine/pulp/79/blog47tips.php.


Pollard, Dave. “The Blogging Process.” July 30, 2003. http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2003/07/30.html#a346.

Pollard, recent dropout from his position as Chief Knowledge Officer of a Big 4 accountancy, is a prolific writer and consultant. Pollard’s post in his blog, “How to Save the World”, is subtitled “A pretentious and presumptuous attempt to document what bloggers have learned, without any formal instruction, to do every day. And then a description of what's needed to make blogs a medium for real conversation.” Pollard presents a unique, visual perspective of what we do when we blog, accompanied by his vision for the future.

___. “Time-Savers For Bloggers.” December 29, 2003. http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2003/12/29.html#a571.

This essay is required reading for everyone who finds it challenging to keep up their blogs: specific, useful suggestions.

Powazek, Derek M. “Weblogs as Community.” In Design for Community: The Art of Connecting Real People in Virtual Places. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders, 2001. http://web.archive.org/web/20021017105308/designfor
community.com/display.cgi/200202182129.

Powazek is a writer and performer, leading the storytelling magazine/movement Fray, and creator of many award-winning websites. In this excerpt from Chapter 12, Powazek portrays weblogs as a powerful community phenomenon, forming communities, “almost by accident.”

Rodgers, Anni Layne. "Targeted Serendipity." Fast Company, March 2002. http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2002/03/blood.html.

Rodgers, Fast Company Senior Web Editor, interviews Rebecca Blood and observes the explosion of blogging following September 11th.

Sherman, Chris. "Pass Me the Blog, Please." Searchday, June 14, 2001. http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2158631.

Sherman, Associate Editor of SearchEngineWatch, writes about blogs for competitive intelligence research and other types of web search.

Siemens, George. "The Art of Blogging - Part 1: Overview, Definitions, Uses, and Implications." December 1, 2002. http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/blogging_part_1.htm.

Siemens, an instructor at Red River College, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, provides a comprehensive introduction to "the uses, benefits, implications, and art of blogging."

___. "The Art of Blogging - Part 2: Getting Started, ‘How To’, Tools, Resources." December 6, 2002. http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/blogging_part_2.htm.

Part 2 provides the tools you need to get started.

Sifry, David. "State of the Blogosphere, October, 2006." November 06, 2006. http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000443.html

David Sifry, founder and CEO of Technorati, presents his quarterly State of the Blogosphere report: "The last few months have prompted a great deal of thought amongst the team here about the maturation of the blogosphere since I wrote the first algorithms that led to the creation of Technorati nearly four years ago, and I'll be going into a lot more depth below."

Sullivan, Andrew. "The Blogging Revolution: Weblogs Are To Words What Napster Was To Music." Wired 10, May 5, 2002. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.05/mustread.html?pg=2/.

Former New Republic editor Sullivan asserts that blogging is "a publishing revolution more profound than anything since the printing press."

Tanglao, Roland. “How Blogs Work in 7 Easy Pieces.” March 23, 2004. http://www.streamlinewebco.com/blog/_archives/2004/3/23/
28903.html.

For visual learners, a very effective representation from Tanglao; blogging since 1999, he now works for Bryght.

Part 1: BlogBib: Definitions & History

Part 3: BlogBib: Blogging @Your Library

BlogBib
Copyright © 2004
Susan Herzog